Leading the Way in Business Education

With its goal of helping develop educators who are also skilled leaders, IESE hosts its International Faculty Program (IFP) at its Barcelona campus this week. The IFP is a unique faculty enrichment program geared toward helping junior faculty members improve their abilities as communicators, inside and outside the classroom, as well as enhancing their capacity to develop courses, author cases and exercise institutional management.

“Most business school faculty members spend considerable time developing high-quality research skills during their Ph.D. programs, but usually they have spent less time on other important areas such as teaching approaches, course design, leadership and managerial skills, and career management," says Javier Santomá, professor of financial management and academic director of the IFP. "The IFP provides business school faculty members with the frameworks and tools for improvement across all those areas.”

Faculty members from over 200 institutions around the world have already participated in the IFP since it was created with support from the European Union some 20 years ago. As a result, program participants have helped create an important international faculty network, which is believed to be making a significant contribution to the elevation of business educational standards in many countries, especially in developing nations.

The 3-week program concentrates on teaching participants methodologies in management education, research and development of curricula. Participants are introduced to the school’s global approach to business education, which takes a general management perspective and places an emphasis on rigorous research and the central role of people in managerial decision making.